20 foot wide Garage Door, Possible Concerns?

[thrifty bill]

I recently bought an old house, and it has a detached garage, that never had a door installed on it. The garage itself is 24 wide, by 26 deep. The opening for the door is 20 feet wide, and I am looking to go with a door that wide, rather than spend time and money making the opening narrower.

I have found some doors that wide, they tend to have a heavier gauge steel, and cost more (go figure).

Anyway, any words of wisdom before I go ahead and order this door?




Thanks!

bill

[G-Man]

Far left door is 20' wide by 13' tall. Spent around $2200 for the door and another $500 for a commercial opener. Don't skimp on the door - its big and subject to LOTS of stress.

[Notch1988]

I've got an 18X9, T16 insulated door on my garage. Had it for 5.5 years now with no issues. It was expensive because they classified it as a commercial door. Look for a few braces across the door, an adjustable band for the bow in the door, big hinges on the rollers to handle the weight and a good system of spreading the load of the door opener.

[bczygan]

Read up on shear walls. You will need to make the wall on each side of the door into a shear panel to resist shear loads that can cause the wall to rack and the structureto fall like a house of cards.

Bill
Designer in Detroit

[december45]

Ive got a 12' rollup door on my shop and when the winds start howling that door really feels it, it will bow pretty significantly, I havent had any real problems with it,but have heard of roll ups being blown hard enough to come off their tracks

[Kentuckian]

When I built my larger garage ten years ago I had two overhead doors installed. One is 10 x 9 and the other is 18 x 9. I have not had any problems so far with either door. The larger door was custom ordered but the price was not bad. Just part of having a nice garage to my specs.

[thecj3man]

My folks have an 18 ft garage door on thier house. The only problem is when the power goes out my mom can't open it by herself. It is a heavy beast.

WAP

[dlewis]

I've had a 19'5"x8' for three years no problems, did not plan on heating garage but ended up getting a heater so I wish I'd got it with insulated double pane windows.

[akdiesel]

I have a 40'x60' shop with two 12' wide by 10' tall doors side by side. There is a center support that can be removed or lifted out of the way when both doors are open giving me approx 25' of span. I really like this set up since I do not need the full opening all the time so the shop is not exposed to the environment.
As stated you will need good support for the shear weight as well as an engineered header beam.

[BADSIX]

i have a 18x9 its 4 years old and no problems it does need to be a commercial style door
thecj3man , have someone come out and adjust the springs. it might save your mommy from hurting her self. i can open my 18 foot insulated with little efort.

[jstroede]

We make 20' wide doors all the time with no issues, either commercial ribbed or residential stamped and either non-insulated open back or insulated sandwich panel type. You are not going to find this on the shelf at your local box store, but it is not an uncommon size at all.

John

[swharris]

Are all these standard segmented panel doors? How about multi segment industrial roll ups in '20+ widths? I'm looking at something in the 25 foot width for my future garage instead of 2 smaller doors.

[6768rogues]

Originally Posted by thecj3man

My folks have an 18 ft garage door on thier house. The only problem is when the power goes out my mom can't open it by herself. It is a heavy beast.

WAP

You should have the springs adjusted or replaced. Any garage door that is properly adjusted should go up with little effort and should not put much load on the opener.

[jstroede]

You can buy roll-up type doors in twice those widths.

John

[69dz302z28]

We bought our house a year and a half ago it has a 21 x 7 door on a converted carport to garage door is heavy gauge steel and is very heavy easy to lift by hand thanks to the hellacious door springs. We have a heavy duty chamberlain screw drive opener, i9t was there when we bought the house. I'm sure its screw drive because of the weight and stress.

[Beaner242]

Ive had my 20x10 installed for several months with no issues what so ever. They come with the steel reinforcement ribs that mount on the inside of the door. Check doorson-line.com Best prices I found.

[lh4x4]

My garage door is 20 X 7. When the old one was at the end of its life and I was going to heat the garage, I went to Raynor for a new one. They did come out and measured for themselves as they would for any order.

I got the one with R13 insulation, two windows and all the metal braces, tracks and even the springs powder coated installed for $2K.

I could see on the garage floor that originally when the garage was built in 1951 there was a post in the center so it had two doors originally. I am the fourth owner so someone along the way wanted a single door and changed it.

I looked on my photobucket pictures and I don't have one directly of the door but here is one of it open taken at a angle so you don't get the full effect of the width.



It has a 3/4 screw drive opener. When the power is out it is very easy to lift. However if one of the springs ever fails, it would be a bear to get up.

[mmhouse]

Get plenty of struts on it to make sure it doesn't buckle.

[Mike in Ohio]

I have an 18 x 8 that I think is not braced well enough. It flexes so much that some of the rivets holding holding the face to the frame popped out. I replaced them with small machine screws and lock nuts and it seems much sturdier. I think it is a CH brand door. I do like the bigger opening though.
Mike

[JDishong]

I plan to purchase a 18' x 10' from Overhead Door Co. Installed for $2k. Most company offer "standard" and "heavy duty" (24 GA steel). From this discussion, I plan to get the HD version. - Thx